Crab Louie’s Seafood Tavern

Great seafood! We had the mini crab cakes for our appetizer and they were wonderful — fresh, tasty and no fillers. For dinner I had the crag Louis salad — awesome! My husband had the shrimp and scallop mornay — very well prepared and the shrimp was tender and flavorful. Of course the sweet breads they serve were wonderful too — especially the banana bread. Highly recommended!

This place has everything going for it, one of the most historic buildings in midlothian and excellent seafood. Everything is fresh and well prepared. I’m partial to the crab cakes and salmon cakes but my wife always gets the fresh fish and she loves it. With the relishes and bread to start out you will not leave hungry. If you’re there for lunch consider the Chesapeake sandwich.

Very cute place for date night! I had the shrimp and grits. Delicious dish ! Very nice sizable portion full of mushrooms and sauce. Our waiter was very attentive and made me a great category 5 hurricane. The broiled seafood platter is also very good but the fried platter is not so great… VERY bland little to no flavor. Other than that a nice place to dine.

Definite 5 stars from us. We didn’t plan on going here, but we were driving around looking for a new place to try and landed here. I’ve lived here for 18 years and never been, my husband is new to the area. We enjoyed every minute of it. The relishes were an interesting treat, the she-​crab dip was yummy as was the salad and specialty breads. But the entrees (my husband had jumbalaya and I he the crab cakes) were phenomenal. The crab cakes were full of yummy crab meat. The jumbalaya’s flavor was rich (only improvement would be a bit more rice). We topped it off by sharing some crème brûlée. We will be back. Soon.

Best restaurant ever! definitely recommend the broiled seafood combination and the swordfish with crab meat! Service was wonderful and attentive. no complaints! Definitely a great restaurant for date night!

Not somewhere to go for a special occasion unless you want casual. First grabbed a dink at the bar, not a very good wine list and white wine was room temperature. At our table, waitress did not clear extra place settings, plus did not clear used wine glasses or plates we were finished with, the table looked like it had not been bused through our meal. Food was subpar, not worth the price. Waters stayed empty throughout the meal, no attention to detail and spent most of dinner thirsty!

I never wanted to go in this place because, frankly, I think they are overpriced. But, I went there because our group wanted to go there. The food was actually REALLY good. But, I still found it be expensive. It was $ 25 for seafood alfredo pasta. That just seems a bit much to me. They do have some good happy hour specials if you sit at the bar. Well drinks were $ 3.50.

We had Crab Louies for happy hour today and really enjoyed it. The ambiance is lovely with wood floors and brick fireplaces on each end of the dining room. I ordered off the happy hour menu and was very pleased. I had a well drink $ 3.50 bourbon and coke, coconut shrimp 5.95 and a bowl of butternut squash soup. Everything delicious. Ths soup was soo good. It had a few pieces of lump crabs and a dollop of sour crème. highly recommend it. Dad had the new England clam chowder. it was excellent. I tried it. $ 2.50 for a cup. that’s a deal. mom had the she-​crab soup. Also very good. Mark our waiter was attentive and took care of us. The relishes they bring out before dinner with perfect. We had a great experience and the price very reasonable. 4.5 Stars.

This was my second visit to this restaurant, and the service was great. I ordered the she crab soup, crab cake and grilled shrimp. Everything was seasoned well and grilled to perfection. The wait staff all kept a smile on their faces. Great resturant if you are willing to pay at least $ 30 person

Brought my wife here for her birthday last night since our experience years ago here was great. Apparently a lot has changed since then. The service was ok, but the food and drinks were subpar. The food had no flavor and was way overpriced for the setting.

Have been coming here since Floyd ran the restaurant. They need him back! We went for family dinner with 5 ppl. Server was very nice but inexperienced and had trouble understanding difference between red and white wine. Breads were delicious as always. Salads were fresh and tasty with homemade dressings. Then we waited over 30 minutes between courses. When food did come out only one dish was hot (the seafood mornay). Oysters were too bready (and this is an R month), Seafood Norfolk was dry, bland, and only lukewarm. Two fish dishes were very average. We’ve eaten here many times, but last night was the worst. Not sure we’ll be back.

Menu looks great but execution was poor. The scallops were not even close to being cooked properly and shrimp lacked flavored.

A very nice dinning experience in this picturesque seafood restaurant. There is no dress code, but it’s full of ambiance. Dress up or go real casual, everyone fits in.
The unique complementary relish and bread selections was a pleasant surprise. The menu selection does not disappoint, which is expectantly in the $ 20-​$ 30 range.
This is a dinning experience for everyone in Richmond to go see and taste for themselves.

Best food in Richmond! Have been eating here 20 years maybe more! The crab cake is my favorite! Service is good and price is right for the quality of food.

I have been going to this restaurant since I was a teenager, so there is a lot of good memories for me here. The restaurant looks the same and is still a nice atmosphere for either two romantics, business lunch or a family gathering.
The food: the complimentary bread and relish that they serve is the same as it always has been. Good quality and great taste… brings me back years and years with same great flavors. I don’t think they have ever changed from the original recipes, which is a good thing.
Unfortunately, the shrimp cocktail was over cooked, bland and tasteless. I would skip that next time.
The salads that come with your meal or standard baby greens and a few tomatoes, however, their dressings are all homemade and delicious… especially the white balsamic vinaigrette and the blue cheese.
I had the seafood Norfolk — lump crab, shrimp and scallops sautéed in butter — served sizzling in a hot metal dish — it was very good. More than I could eat after the bread and salad.
Husband had the mahi mahi with a mango relish — I was a bit concerned that he would like this because he is not a big fan of fruit on dishes… but he loved it! Ate every bit.
We will be back when we need some good seafood, as there are really very few places that offer this in the Midlothian area.

Nope, nope, NOPE!
It does not surprise me that Crab Louie’s seems to have completely polarized ratings — scan through and you’ll see people rating it either one star or five, rarely a three. I think many are either reviewing what it USED to be (five star) or have adjusted (ie lowered) their expectations of this joint as time has gone by.
We’d heard great things and were exciting to finally find decent seafood.
Such a disappointment. Cramped. Poor service. Bad food poorly presented.
Skip it.

Not impressed. I had the she crab soup, shrimp cocktail and Shrimp & Scallops Mornay. I also had a sample of the Jambalaya my dad ordered.
To start off, the server was good, handled our party of 11 real well. There was a goof up with what room we were supposed to be in, but hey we were seated in different room all together. No biggie.
The cornbread was good, on arrival to our table, they had various breads sitting out for us. Banana nut bread (Maybe), Pumpkin Bread or carrot bread (?) again not real sure. No complaints from anyone about that. Everyone liked what they tried.
The soup, its okay. The soup was tasty, but I’m not sure if it’s supposed to have any crab in it or not. The bits of stuff in there were so small, they might as well have not been in there. That would be my only gripe on it.
Shrimp cocktail is measured by one thing and one thing only… The cocktail sauce.
YUMMY! World class cocktail sauce. Thank you.
My dinner was, just okay. It’s a Crab Louie unique item and by the menu sounded good, «Gulf shrimp and scallops prepared in a white wine cheese sauce, topped with Havarti cheese and baked.» There didn’t seem to be any wine in the cheese sauce, but plenty of butter. My first bite tasted like I was eating a scallop in a spoonful of hot butter. When i got around to the cheesey part, it was okay, I could taste what could have been good, but it just wasn’t as tasty as expected. I love havarti cheese and a white wine cheese sauce should not feel like melted butter. Seems like too much butter killed the flavor. the Vegetable primavera that came with it was good.
I tried the jambalaya my dad ordered. No spice at all. I cannot take extremely hot stuff, but I can do creole and most cajun food all day long. I’ve been to New Orleans and had real Jambalaya, Shrimp Etoufee, Fried Alligator and so forth. This Jambalaya had no flavor at all. NONE, not even a shred of cayenne pepper to be found anywhere. It was also served, with rice, not rice in it, or on top of a bed of rice, a bowl of rice was given to you on the side and you mixed it in yourself? Fail…
If it’s a broiled or fried fish or seafood dish, you’ll be okay. everyone who had crab cakes and latke, enjoyed it.
I’ve had better, much better.

Do NOT get the fried oysters. Thickly breaded, unappealing, looks like chicken nuggets. I should have sent them back but I was with my mom and she loves the place. Me? Not so much. Place used to be amazing. Now, Captain D’s would have been just as good.

Yet another ‘Twilight Zone/​Candid Camera’ restaurant moment…
So… we sit down at the table and I decide to order the Crab Louie, since, after all, that is the name of the restaurant. And the waitress says ‘What kind of dressing do you want on that’, which seemed like an odd question. I told her I’d like the Louie dressing, to which she replied — ‘We don’t have that’. Say what??? Okaaayyyy — how about Russian dressing? Nope. How about Thousand Island? Nope. I asked ‘How can you call it Crab Louie and not have the Louie dressing? To which she replies ‘We used to make it, but not enough people ordered it and it went bad’. I didn’t bother suggesting smaller batches.
My suggestion — change the name of the restaurant to ‘Crab Not Louie’.

We went to Crab Louie’s for the first time and it was good enough that I will try it again, but not fantastic. My wife had a salad with shrimp on it and while the shrimp were good the salad was mediocre. I had a crab cake and their signature seafood «latke». The crab cake was not great. In a state where you can get fantastic crab cakes many places this one was just ok. The «latke» was a pancake with some seafood inside and a red pepper sauce. Latke is a Yiddish word used to describe a potato pancake and there was no potato in this creation, so I felt misled.
Again, I will definitely come back and try it again, but for the money I was not blown away. My highlight was the very good clam chowder and the friendly and attentive service.